Our unconventional love affair

She’s a bestselling author. He’s her loyal assistant, who met her when she was in the thick of alcoholism, and has helped her through depression. Married for 24 years, they’re as happy as newly-weds. Miranda Levy discovers their secret

Marian Keyes is having her make-up done in her bathroom, with its shiny green mosaic floor and purple mosaic walls. Her husband, Tony Baines, ‘Himself’ to the hundreds of thousands who follow her on Twitter and YouTube, is sitting on the single step down from the landing. Ten feet of space separates them, as does Tish, the hair and make-up lady. But the connection between Marian and Tony – an emotional channel of love, respect, humour – is something you can almost reach out and touch.

Twenty-five years after publishing Watermelon, her first novel, Marian, 56, is about to release her 14th. Tens of millions of readers in 36 languages adore her warm and witty stories, peopled with believable characters and stealthy wisdom. It’s not bad for the diminutive daughter of an accountant from Ireland. But so much of Marian’s success and happiness is down to Tony, a former IT consultant, and her husband of 24 years. “We are extremely a partnership,” she says. “Extremely. At least, he is at ease with being my dogsbody. He’s very obliging.”

The pair met at Tony’s 30th-birthday party in 1992, but didn’t get together until two years later. “I was in my last crash-and-burn of alchie drinking, and not available as a person,” says Marian. In the past, she’s said that while Tony was the perfect man, she was ‘mired’ in alcoholism back then, at her worst: “I was 29. By the time I was 30, the drinking was so bad, I went into rehab. I thought thebest of my life was behind me.”

“We fancied each other,” Tony says today. “But I could see she had a problem, and wasn’t great to be around.”